Euro Crash

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29 February 2012, 6.30pm

IEA, 2 Lord North Street, London, SW1 (door on Great Peter Street)

The exit route from monetary failure in Europe

Euro Crash turns the conventional diagnosis of the failure of the European Monetary Union on its head. It argues that the main problem was not sub-optimal currency areas nor profligate government spending but fatal flaws in monetary design and an appalling series of policy mistakes by the European Central Bank (ECB).

Brendan Brown shows how the inflation-targeting regime established by the ECB right at the start, coupled with the reckless dismantling of the old Bundesbank's monetary framework, contributed decisively to the ensuing gross failures. Further factors in the fatal cocktail included long-term French monetary nationalism, empowered by a French President at the head of the ECB, and the succumbing of euro officials to the same deflation phobia which had gripped the Federal Reserve.

In exploring these themes, Brendan Brown draws on both traditional monetarist and Austrian School economic literature. He demonstrates that the European Sovereign Debt Crisis is in fact the bust phase of a credit bubble which to a critical extent was manufactured in Frankfurt's Euro Tower.

Brendan Brown is executive director/head of economic research at Mitsubishi UFJ Securities International plc. Dr Brown’s areas of special expertise include monetary theory, the global flow of capital, international financial history. He has published many books on contemporary finance and financial history. He received postgraduate degrees from London School of Economics (PhD) and University of Chicago (MBA).